The Restaurant

Handling

The Restaurant is a successful Irish reality television programme broadcast on RTÉ One. The seventh series began on 16 November 2008, running on Sundays at 20:30. In each episode a celebrity head chef takes on the culinary challenge of producing a top class, three-course meal with two value-for-money wines. This is then served to the restaurant's customers and the resident critics, Tom Doorley and Paolo Tullio, who are joined each week by a guest critic. The chef's identity remains a secret to those being served their food until the end of the show when all has been eaten. The critics give the meal a star rating of between one and five, which is then pulled from an envelope after the head chef joins the critics' table. The Restaurant is voiced over by Seán Moncrieff and the restaurant is manned by John Healy, Maitre'D; the kitchen staff, chefs David Workowich, Stephen McAllister and Louise Lennox and food researcher, Stephen Quin, and waiting staff, waitress, Elaine Normile and waiters, Lee Bradshaw and Vivian Reynolds. Following on from the success of the television show, RTÉ published The Restaurant - The Magazine, which includes images and recipes from the series.

The format is sold internationally by Vision Independent Productions under the title The Secret Chef. It has had 3 seasons in Italy.